Sonnet · Sad
Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now
1Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
2Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
3Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
4And do not drop in for an after-loss:
5Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,
6Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
7Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
8To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.
9If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
10When other petty griefs have done their spite,
11But in the onset come: so shall I taste
12At first the very worst of fortune's might;
13 And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
14 Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now” by William Shakespeare — quilloak.com/poems/sonnet-90
Quick facts
- Poem
- Sonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now
- Poet
- William Shakespeare
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Sonnet
- Themes
- Sad, Love
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Shakespeare1564–1616
- Source record
- PoetryDBSonnet 90: Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now by william-shakespeare, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 a90cd812f8a9d766…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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